BIO
Stella Jungmann

Stella Jungmann is a doctoral candidate at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, writing a dissertation entitled: Imaging Japan in the U.S.: The dissemination, distribution, and translation of photographs in the 19th century (working title). She also works as a research assistant and teaches seminars on photo history at the Center for Studies in the Theory and History of Photography at the Institute of Art History.

PROJECT
Imaging Japan in the U.S.: The dissemination, distribution, and translation of photographs in the 19th century (working title)
2016

My dissertation project examines photography as a visual medium that shaped the representation of Japan in the U.S. during the 1850s to 1870s. Highlighting the significance of the photographic medium as a “visual opening” of Japan, I intend to rethink the way in which Japan was visually constructed for the U.S. American audience. I trace the complex routes of dissemination, distribution, and translation of photographic prints, against the background of the theoretical discourse around photography.

Soon after the acquisition of the Western States in 1848, the U.S. government pursued further expansion across the Pacific, where Japan served as a connecting point in the trade with East Asia. Both the Perry Expedition in 1852/54 and the visit of the Japanese Ambassadors to the U.S. in 1860 were among the first opportunities to record, report on, photography, and sketch the previously secluded nation. Particularly in the case of the Japanese mission, this was done with great abundance, so that the Photographic Journal claimed everyone in the U.S. could now recognize and identify each Japanese embassy member by name. This project will examine the manner in which a “mysterious nation” was visualized and received by the U.S. public, the historical implications that were in place and may have shaped such visualizations, and the role the medium of photography played in constructing both the public image of Japan and in turn a self-image of the U.S.

OUTCOME
With the Peter Palmquist Memorial Fund I was able to cover my research trip to Los Angeles and Berkeley, California. Based on this research, I wrote my article “Imaging Japan in Illustrated Newspapers: The Role of Photography in Visualizing the Japanese Embassy in the United States, 1860,” which was published in the PhotoResearcher in October 2018. For the editorial, see: eshph.org PDF